Honk If You're Horny — An Arthur Dent Story
by quillsandpills
Summary: Set in the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent comes across a new revolutionary device that is set to change the traffic system forever!


**HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY**

Arthur Dent carefully studied the horn the salesman from Viltvodle VI was trying to sell him. He then proceeded to carefully study the salesman from Viltvodle VI who was trying to sell him the horn. He was tall, blue, fifty-handed, two-headed and blind in his third-eye — stabbed by a particularly nasty customer who didn't want to buy the copy of the Encyclopaedia Galactica he had been trying to sell him, he explained enthusiastically. There was an air of shiftiness about him that made Arthur Dent suspicious of his intentions and his dress-up seemed like something he had put together from the back of a truck-store on Ursa Minor Beta. He also talked too much and was completely unhelpful about the details of the product he was trying convince Arthur to buy. "Everyone's who's anyone who's in existence is buying it." He kept insisting. "Don't be a Sqornshellous mattress. Just take it."

Arthur was pleased.

All in all the man. . . ummm alien, seemed like a typical salesman, the kind that used to come knocking by his house on Earth on Sunday afternoons. Quite irritating and completely untrustworthy – that's how Arthur knew he could trust him.

"So this thing makes traffic disappear?" he cautiously asked the salesman once again hoping against hope for an answer he could understand.

"Yesiree." The salesman pushed the horn further up in Arthur's face using ten of his hands while the rest paraded a blur of brochures and manuals across Arthur's eyes. "This here is the Honkinator 3000 —the pinnacle of galactic science and technology. The invention the universe had been building up to for so long. The ultimate triumph of Jatravartidian kind even if we did not build it. Even the coming of the great white handkerchief does not seem like such a bad fate now that the universe is complete. So how about it? Will you buy one?"

Arthur thought about it. He thought he had glimpsed an image of how the horn was supposed to clear traffic with just one tiny aural emission, and it did seem appealing to him. He vaguely remembered having something similar on Earth but couldn't quite recall it being ever so life changing. "Are you sure it works?" he asked sniffing at the metallic object pressed up against his nose.

The Jatravartidian salesman looked hurt. Two dozen arms fell sadly limp. "Are you kidding me? What do you think I am? An advertising agent?! Of course it works! Trust me on this. Here I'll knock off 10% on the price even. My kids can go hungry for a week, but a great guy like you should not be without a horn. What, with all that traffic out there? Never! Here, take it. Take it now. I'm doing you a solid buddy. Don't make me beg now." The Jartravartidian salesman held up the horn in front of him as an offering.

Arthur wasn't quite sure what to make of this. He didn't want any begging but he wasn't sure either that he needed a horn either when the only driving he ever did was to go get his laundry while he waited for Ford Prefect to return from his trip to Betelgeuse. "I'm not really sure that I nee—" he began to protest.

"Fine you handsome bastard. You drive a hard bargain." The salesman quashed his rebellion. "20% off. And that's my final offer. Couple of my younglings might die of hunger and even I might have to skip a meal, but I'll do this for you. But only because I like you so much. So just shut up and buy the damn thing already, will 'ya!"

Arthur did as he was told.

Five minutes later he kind of felt he should have protested more strongly than he did, but seeing the Jatravartidian salesman drive away he realized that it might be a bit too late for that. But nevertheless he wouldn't let that stop him. "Thank you for your time but I really am not interested in buying." he said aloud to no one.

He then looked at the small red box he had bought and the stack of manuals the salesman had left in his hands. HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY read the big bold letters on the box. A mis-translation caused by the unupdated babble fish in his brain the salesman had assured him. "You need to regularly clean out the fish droppings in you head" he'd informed him. "Its cluttering your neural pathways. Dunk your head in a toilet sometime. Cleans the gunk right out. Also a good substitute for coffee. Just make sure you flush before. And don't get too excited. This doesn't make women appear. Not yet anyway. We're working on a new model that might do so at the Megadodo coroporation. Will send you a sample. But this one only clears traffic. Just one press of a button and watch the roads clear before your eyes. Its revolutionary I tell 'ya!"

It wasn't.

But Arthur hadn't quite yet figured out why. The first manual he picked up had the image of a hovercar stuck in traffic on its cover and a big sign next to it which read 'THIS IS YOU'. Followed by what looked like either a horde of flying eels or some random squiggly lines assaulting all the cars around YOU. The inside page read:

'Stuck in traffic? Getting late for that important television show? Well you can stop worrying now because the Honkinator 3000 will fix all your problems. Just press the button and watch 3000 decibels of aural intensity force the poor sods in front of you clear the hover-road whether they want to or not. So stop worrying and start honking. Honkinator 3000—Honk if you're horny. (also available in 4000, 5000 and 'This is illegal!' variants)' An extremely pleased Altairian was presenting his thumbs in approval next to it.

Arthur quite liked the look of this. Altairians were after all a highly trustworthy source of approval. A second manual informed him that all he needed to do to install his new horn was to drop it in his car's ingestion box and that it would fix itself. He did as he was instructed. It was one of the few things he was particularly good at—following instructions. He was quite proud how good he was at it too, but he never really showed it because he had been once instructed that it was bad manners to do so.

A button automatically appeared on the steering disc once the horn was installed. 'Press Here' the button invited in big, bold letters. Arthur accepted while wondering what it was with this galaxy and big, bold letter. The sound blast was extraordinary. There weren't any cars in the vicinity to get rid off but couple of bushes suddenly decided to relocate a mile away. Another half again just to be sure.

Arthur was pleased. Traffic on this planet was always a pain and he'd gotten quite tired of having to stick his head out each time there was a muck and asking people to move. "Oi! You don't want me coming over there!" wasn't much of a threat when you were hovering 500 hundred feet up in the air. He pulled on to the nearest highway and pleasantly got stuck in traffic right away. Things were going fabulously.

He waited for more cars to amass and then with gleeful deliberation pressed the horn. The effect was marvellous. Three cars shot upwards in surprise. One jumped over an other. A couple cursed and fell flaming to the ground. And the rest suddenly grew sense and parted to let him through. He was king of the hover-road. Things couldn't be better.

He drove along jauntily sneering at the envious crowd of fellow-traffickers stuck in the jam around him. They jealously watched him move smoothly along from the confines of their horn-less cars, wishing they could do the same. And any time someone grew a nerve and refused to budge, Arthur would just honk and rattle that nerve away.

"How are you doing that?" they would ask all amazed and bleeding from their ears.

"The Honkinator 3000" he would reply, proudly showing them the box before driving past.

He hummed happily to himself as he did his laundry that day. There would be no sitting for hours in the car today on the way home. He would just honk his way back. Who knew driving could be this much fun? And why hadn't they invented this thing before? It seemed all so simple. Honk! Honk! Honk! It was all he had to do. And so much less complicated than having only a window to shout out of from your car. Stupid aliens! How did they end up having such advanced civilization while humans got extinct? Oh yes! The Vogons! Oh well. Stuff happens. At least he had his towel. And it did smell nice after a wash. He folded it up and dropped it in the cart with his other washed clothes.

Humming he made his way out the laundry shop. Hummmm... Hummmm...Huuuu— the third hum being cut short by a 3000 decibel blast that sent his laundry scurrying. Another, 4000 decibel one sent them running back. A yellow striped hover car flew past him with its windshield shattered and its driver bleeding through all seven of his ears and four of his eyes. Up in the sky, droves of small delivery bots flew around delivering boxes of Honkinators to every hover-car around, which instantly began blaring out aloud insisting that the traffic clear for them. However, with everyone honking no one was moving.

"Oh dear" thought Arthur watching the congested mess. "Now I'll never get home in time to watch the Hyperdrive of Fortune."

The giant traffic mess that occurred that day went down in the planet's history as its worst ever. They had had many traffic jams before but never one that warranted a separate entry in the Encyclopaedia Galactica. 'The infinite mess' they called it. It took Arthur 5 days to get home, and that too only after he dashed between the burning carcasses of hover-cars that had crashed to the ground after being honked at mercilessly. The entry read: Never in the history of the galaxy has there been a more messed up mess. The infinite mess is a complex jumble of hover-cars and irate drivers that is complicated enough to warrant a zillionth degree polynomial. More updates will follow as soon as our correspondent gets free of the mess, which according to her estimate can take anywhere between a few hours to infinity. Let's hope for the best.

"That's a nasty mess" announced Ford Prefect as he walked in through the door. "Had to park my ship on the next continent."

"It's the horns." Arthur explained. "They're driving people crazy and not really helping with the traffic either."

"Horns?!" exclaimed Ford loudly as if he'd heard that they were out of beer. "I thought they had all been banned and dismantled after the Great Galactic Squabble of 2200? What are people doing using horns? Where would they even get the idea?"

Arthur looked at his toes for counsel but finding them the least helpful he decided to go with his shoulders. "I don't know" he shrugged sheepishly.

"Well whatever." replied Ford. "We need to get out of here. It's just too damn loud."

Arthur couldn't agree more. "I couldn't agree more." he said and picked up his towel.


End file.
